Flamingo Musings » macarons

The Valentine Edition

RJ Flamingo — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 04:59:00 +0000

Love is in the air and it’s time to consider what delectable sweet treats to share with the ones we love. It’s also time for the monthly MacTweets challenge!

For those of you unfamiliar, Mac Tweets is made up of people all over the world mesmerized and obsessed with a little French cookie called the macaron. For February, the Mac Tweets theme is – and how could it not be – Valentine’s Day!

These simple little cookies can produce such frustration, that even the most accomplished baker approaches the oven with not a little trepidation when the timer goes off. I have tried all the famous recipes, and some not-so-famous ones. But, I have finally refined the basic recipe and technique to a point where I’m getting consistent results and feel comfortable sharing what I’m doing, with you:

RJ’s Basic Macaron Recipe

Ingredients:

1 rounded cup blanched, slivered almonds
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

3 egg whites
1/8 tsp. cream of tartar
2 Tbs + 1 tsp. granulated sugar

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 300º. Prepare 2 baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.

Place the almonds and powdered sugar in the bowl of a food processor, and run until the nuts are superfine and combined with the sugar. Sift the mixture into a bowl and set aside.

In a larger glass or metal bowl, beat the egg whites until frothy. Sift in the cream of tartar and sugar, and continue beating until glossy, stiff peaks form.

Fold half of the nut/sugar mixture into the egg whites until nearly incorporated. Add the other half and continue to fold until the whites are completely incorporated, with no white streaks showing. The batter is the right consistency when a bit of batter dropped from a spoon onto a flat plate loses its peak in a few seconds. If the peak remains, give the batter two or three additional folds and test again.

Load the batter into a pastry bag with a large round tip and pipe into circles about 1-1/2″ in diameter onto the baking sheets, keeping them about 1-1/2″ or more apart. If decorating your macs, this is the time. For these Valentine Macs, I placed a 1/2″ heart-shaped cutter on top of the mac, and lightly sprinkled red sanding sugar inside till the surface was completely covered, then gently removed the cutter in a straight-up motion.

Leave the macarons out on the counter for at least 45 minutes to dry. You may have to let them sit longer in higher humidity. They’re ready to bake when they’ve formed a light skin over the top. Touch one lightly with your finger. If it feels dry and not sticky, you’re good to go.

Bake for 18 – 20 minutes. Allow to cool, remove from pans with offset spatula and fill if and how desired.

Filling continues to be my personal bugaboo. So I didn’t fill these. But they’re so light and crispy – yet chewy on the inside – that I decided to leave well enough alone.

For more Valentine’s Day cookie options, try these Linzer Torte Cookies, cut in heart shapes, or these Stained Glass Lemon Cookies, with heart cut-outs!

Mac Attack III & PhotoHunt: Jiggly

RJ Flamingo — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 04:04:00 +0000

I’m combining my PhotoHunt post this week with my January Mac Tweets Challenge! And the PhotoHunt theme this week is “Jiggly”!

For those of you unfamiliar, Mac Tweets is made up of people all over the world mesmerized and obsessing over a little French cookie called the macaron. For January, the Mac Tweets theme is, well, “New.” Do something new with your macs – something you’ve never tried before. How do the two themes, “New” and “Jiggly” go together in this post?

Well, for the “Jiggly” part, I made marmalade. Ruby Red Grapefruit Marmalade, to be exact. I’ve never made marmalade before, in fact, I’ve never canned anything before! More about the marmalade next week, when I post about another new group I’ve joined, the “Can Jam”.

So this is very, very New for me. Oh, and that marmalade is pretty Jiggly.

These are Ginger Almond Macarons filled with my Ruby Red Grapefruit Marmalade. The other New aspect to my macs this time, is color. I have to admit that I was inspired by Elissa of 17 and Baking’s Striped Peppermint Meringues, last month, and have been itching to try something like her technique with my macs. Well, no time like the present!

After mixing up my batter, I dabbed paste food coloring in pink and yellow – to hint at the pink grapefruit (deep pink on the inside, yellow on the outside) – randomly on the inside of my pastry bag. I then loaded up the pastry bag with my batter, and piped my macs, getting these random, swirly effects on my shells.

Yes, I know I probably over-mixed the batter a bit, and probably piped a bit too large – note the petite “ballerina feet.” I think they came out pretty cool. But then, that’s just me.

(Are you out there, Casey? I think I’m going to have some fodder for you pretty soon!)

Mac Attack II – MacTweets

RJ Flamingo — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 11:00:00 +0000

I don’t have a “12 Days of Cookies” post today, so I hope you’ll scroll down to yesterday’s (after this, of course!) and visit the other dedicated holiday cookie bakers in their quest to produce 12 cookies in 12 days from the Bon Appétit 2008 Holiday Cookie-a-Day collection!

“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To tweet of many things:
Of eggs–and nuts–and flavorings–
Of Macarons–and sweets–
And why meringue won’t lighten up –
And whether Macs have feet.”

(with apologies to Lewis Carroll)

The journey began last September, when I was conned, er, coerced, no, um, invited by Deeba and Jamie to join a challenge to make French macaron cookies – the first Mac Attack. I gave it four tries and this is what I produced back in September:

and this:

Notice something? No feet. No ruffley, elevated base from which the macarons rise gracefully to smooth, mushroom-like tops. Look like little Moon Pies, don’t they? I comforted myself with my husband’s words: “Hey, they don’t need feet to get ‘em to my mouth!”

In the end, though, it wasn’t enough. Although fear of further failure reared its ugly head, the subsequent mysterious and cryptic Twitter chatter between Deeba and Jamie only served to whet my curiosity. Then the announcement: MacTweets, the website, was born, and with it, the opportunity for wannabe macaron-bakers of every skill level, to learn, to bake, to commiserate, and speculate over every aspect of the macaron and its most elusive feature: feet.

I discovered that I wasn’t alone. Accomplished bakers and cooks on at least three continents were bemoaning the lack of feet on their macarons, trying this recipe and that, sifting, drying, tweaking oven temperatures. We compared technique and relative humidity. As we came closer and closer to this day, the Twitter buzz intensified and the tension mounted.

Finally, like Deeba, on my sixth try, I produced macarons with feet! I was all alone in the house, and grateful for that, as I did the “happy mac dance” around the kitchen, squealing “I’ve got FEET!” I grabbed my cell phone, took a quick, fuzzy snap, and posted it to Twitter with the caption: “FEET! I’ve got FEET!” The uninitiated were all like, “Huh?” or “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’m happy for you” but others knew and shared my joy.

I don’t know if I can make it happen again, but without further ado, and in honor of both Chanukah and Christmas (we’re a bi-holiday household), I bring you Peppermint Macarons filled with White Chocolate Peppermint Buttercream:

Do feel free to click on the photos to see them in all their glory! And please visit MacTweets for recipes, tutorials, and general all-around encouragement, and return on December 15th for a roundup of Macarons from home bakers all over the world!

Mac Attack!

RJ Flamingo — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 20:43:00 +0000

Lured in by @Vindee, @lifesafeast, and @ShelleyBakes, – new friends of mine on Twitter – I accepted the challenge to bloggers and Twitterers all over the world to attempt to make that delicate filled sandwich cookie, the French macaron.

Not to be confused with the macaroon, the French macaron is an airy cookie made of meringue and ground nuts. Sandwich a yummy creamy filling between two of them and you have the macaron.

Making macarons is not as easy as it sounds, and in the end, I must admit defeat. As in de feet. A proper macaron has a smooth, crispy outer shell, a chewy interior, and a rough”foot” from which it rises a bit. Well, two out of three ain’t bad.

I ain’t got no feet. But they are delicious!

Pistachio Macarons with Chocolate Almond Butter Cream – 3rd attempt

Hazelnut Macarons with Coffee Cream – 4th attempt

And you know what? I’m good with that. My second attempt (failed for other reasons) was a recipe for chocolate macarons out of A Passion For Chocolate by Maurice and Jean-Jacques Bernachon (adapted by Rose Levy Bernabaum for the American kitchen). In a photo illustrating their macarons – guess what? – no feet! But as MJ said when I gave him one to taste: “They don’t need feet to get ‘em to my mouth.” I love him. Anyways…

So, whether to blame the humidity, oven temperature(s), or any of the other minute variables, I can’t tell. And under the circumstances, I’m not going to share these particular recipes. But do visit Jamie at Life’s A Feast and see how she and other food bloggers (in whose company I am most humble) who took up the Mac Attack challenge, did!